More NASCAR Chase problems alleged

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Tiny Front Row Motorsports asked for a deal from Penske Racing in the closing laps of last weekend’s race at Richmond and then helped make sure Penske’s Joey Logano made the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship by having one of its drivers back off, according to an Associated Press review of radio communications.

David Gilliland’s spotter tells his crew that Logano’s team wanted Gilliland’s spot on the track ‘‘and they said they’d probably be able to help us in the future,’’ according to the review of Front Row’s radio communications.

A short time later, Logano passed Gilliland on a restart and finished 22d — one spot ahead of Gilliland and good enough for a berth in the Chase field.

‘‘Good job, good job, man,’’ the spotter says. ‘‘Hopefully we’ll get something out of that.’’

Trading favors on and off the track is common in NASCAR, but the series is already trying to rebound from the embarrassment of another team manipulating the outcome at Richmond. Earlier this week, NASCAR punished Michael Waltrip Racing and three of its drivers for shenanigans over the final seven laps and took the unprecedented step of pulling one of them, Martin Truex Jr., out of the Chase field.

Truex, who took the news hard, according to good friend Ryan Newman, broke his silence Wednesday in a series of posts on Twitter.

‘‘I drove the hardest race of my life that Night & was unaware of any other circumstances other than needing to finish as high as I could to have a chance,’’ Truex tweeted. ‘‘This has been a very difficult situation for everyone involved. I hope we can all move on. I’m looking forward to Chicago.’’

The Chase begins Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway.

It does so marred by the MWR controversy, and now the suggestion that Front Row hit up deep-pocketed Penske for compensation to get Logano into the 12-driver field while someone else was tanking the race.

A review of Logano’s team radio reveals no communications indicating any discussions with Front Row. Logano is told only right before the final restart that he’s racing three cars for position, one of which is Gilliland.

Penske and Front Row are both Ford teams and considered partners, and statistics analyzed by AP also show that after Logano passed him, Gilliland’s lap times dropped off by almost 1 second from the times he was running prior to the radio exchange.

NASCAR said it was aware of the communications ‘‘and is looking into it, but has yet to see anything in full context that requires any action.’’

Front Row spokesman Jeff Dennison said the team did not heed a Penske request to give Logano track position before the final restart. An e-mail to a Penske spokesman was not immediately answered.